Cil Adasiga
The Protectorate of Cil Adasiga “Once, we were among the great cities of the Tlankuram, a jewel in our own right. It was here that the great Spice Houses were born and prospered, and here that the triumphant armies of the Drecitoun Campaigns marched after they had crushed the barbarians. Now, we are but a memory of vanished strength, eclipsed by these… magicians. The baseborn and inhuman heathens know nothing of virtue or honour, and hide behind their witchcraft like—what was that, sir? … Your chamber pot, sir? … Right away, sir!” – Rikän of the Three Owls, beholden to Thenremas, a half-elven Master of the Guild “I shall be entirely honest with you. There has been a great amount of mythology that accumulated about why the Guild chose this city after the destruction of Teogene. The real reason is that we had nowhere else to go. Drecitou was a chaos of orcs, relict necromancer cults, and desperate bands of refugee Elutapi. The Kruvates Plains were hardly better, and what would become Sraiyag Vacan was under the rule of a megalomaniac whose fanatic soldiers swore he was Ganrelka-on-earth. Idroslekh, Ishkula, Injil? All were too distant and too strained with war. Cil Adasiga, however, was close, orderly, and fearful. We came and hid them from the orcs, and in exchange, they made us their kings. And so we have been to this day, and I must say, the system is so excellent that I rather wish our splendid Archmasters would get about to making all of Kerlonna like this.” – Thenremas, during a social drink Founding Year Unknown, dating to preliterate periods, but recorded in the Songs of the Elders as having taken place “twelve generations” before that of Marnoz, dating its tribal founding by the Adasigoi to some time in the 800s PMY Geography Cil Adasiga lies on the eastern shores of the Tlankuram, almost due east of Eädreñ and lying at about the centre of a line that could be drawn connecting the ruins of Marnoz to Herarzä. Thanks to gnomish engineering, the entire city enjoys some basic luxuries that are unheard-of outside its walls, the most significant being a sewage system and running water from a Marnic Era aqueduct, which make it a far healthier city than are others of a similar size in Kerlonna. The heart of Cil Adasiga is a district known as the College Mount. Separated from the rest of the city by a stout wall designed to repulse magical power (both from within and without), this area was once home to the Adasigan nobility and their fortresses at the centre of the city. As such, it is perched on the flat top of a great hill that overlooks the rest of the city, which surrounds it. After the Guild took control of the city, it was radically redesigned into a combination of campus for the training of arcane students and a residential district for full-fledged wizards. The Colleges for which the area takes its general name are nine in number, one for the general practice of wizardry, seven for the particular schools of magic, and one for worldly academics, such as history, the arts, and mathematics. In addition, the College Mount is home to the Vatheot Library and the Halls of Assembly, the former being the largest library in Kerlonna and home to the Lesser Mysteries, and the latter being home to the proceedings for the Arcane Assembly and the Outer Council. The College of Worldly Studies is open to the enrolment of non-arcane students from the city or from abroad (Adasigan mage-born youths in particular form a large constituency of students there), and the Vatheot Library contains not only magical lore, but every sort of text imaginable in Kerlonna, from compiled myths of the elves to ta’Ullami philosophical treatises. While the colleges, the Library, and the Halls of Assembly sit atop the Mount, the sides of the hill have been chiselled into terraces, with gnomish engineering used to dig artificial caverns into the rock. In these “dens,” as they are called, the wizards have their residences, which, despite their being hewn from stone, are as fine as any nobleman’s manor. Students at the colleges live in dormitories, so the dens serve as the home for those graduated wizards who choose to make Cil Adasiga their home. The entirety of the College Mount is an almost paradisiacal place, with the Vatheot Library’s great marble dome gleaming in the sun, magnificent gardens winding between the colleges, and beautiful vistas looking out to the azure Tlankuram in the south and west or the plains, quilted with farms, to the north and east. However, one should not expect to be allowed entry by the spell-hounds who man the gates, unless one is obviously a wizard or their sworn retainer, a mage-born, or an outsider with express permission to enter (such as diplomats and trusted adventurers). Immediately below the College Mount is the Ring Road, which surrounds the hill. A broad and tree-lined avenue, it separates the wall at the base of the mount from the rest of the city. Three major streets branch off the Ring Road: the West-Road, which leads to the waterfront and the harbour; the North-Road, which leads out to the city’s northern gate, and the East-Road, leading to the eastern gate. Since it is the area of the city closest to the College Mount, the Ring Road serves as home to the mage-born, foreign diplomats, and adventurers, both active and retired, who have made their fortunes in service to the Guild. Along the Ring Road are shops, studios for artists, and beautiful townhouses, as well as small street markets in the summer where low people come to sell food to the wealthy of the city. Somewhere beneath the city lie the Greater Mysteries. Originally constructed as a series of escape passages and dungeons by the paranoid King Zaivehri circa PMY 300, they had long fallen out of the memory of the Adasigan people by the time of the Guild’s arrival, and had crumbled and mouldered. However, the wizards had these passageways and chambers greatly expanded and reinforced upon their settlement in the city, turning them into great vaults for all of the Guild’s most precious artefacts: the skeleton of Nyadeg, the Diadem of Kjuptal, the Horn of the Summer-King, and the like. Naturally enough, the Greater Mysteries are well hidden, but the fact of their presence is known throughout the city. It is the dream of thieves everywhere to steal something from the Greater Mysteries, for it would be the most glorious theft in the history of Kerlonna, a thing of story and of song. That would almost make up for the bloody and terrible vengeance of the Guild that would soon follow. Outside of Cil Adasiga is a region of farms, vineyards, and small villages, the source of the city’s food. It extends outward from the city for about thirty miles in every direction and it is policed by both the local militia and the occasional patrols of spell-hounds. At its outer perimeter lie small garrisons and a great stone wall, erected in FY 39, which are policed by militiamen. Beyond this perimeter lies wilderness broken up only by occasional freeholds. The people of these rural settlements belong to the same racial and cultural stock as the low people of the city, and are proud to call themselves owners of their land, which is entirely devoted to agriculture or pasture. Although they are under the rule of Cil Adasiga, the rural people see relatively little of their wizard overlords. A few of the wealthiest Guild members own small rural estates in this countryside, but even their land is almost wholly given over to agriculture. Population & Demographics Since the establishment of the Guild there, Cil Adasiga has become one of the most racially diverse cities in Kerlonna. Although humans still form a majority, half-elves, gnomes, and elves (in that order of size from largest to smallest) form significant proportions of the urban population. About seventy percent of the city is human, fifteen percent half-elven, ten percent gnomish, and five percent elven. The total population of the city sits around seventy-four thousand souls. Of these seventy-four thousand, only around sixty-two hundred are wizards (counting students), which is still a higher concentration than any other city in the known world. The presence of half-elves, gnomes, and elves in the city mostly has to do with the matter of marriage and childbearing among the wizards. Since there are no “magical bloodlines,” the offspring of such unions are usually worldlings, and since the wizards tend to be of human, gnomish, half-elven, and elven race, a large population of wizard-descended nonhumans has developed in the city: they are known as the “mage-born”. Government & Foreign Relations Cil Adasiga is Kerlonna’s only modern magocracy, a curious instance where “nobility of the blood” has been replaced by “nobility of the wizards”, which can stem to the history of the city during the Great Orc-Wars. In the aftermath of the Fall of Marnoz, Cil Adasiga was on the verge of destruction itself, surrounded by orcish armies that were approaching by the day. When the Guild wizards arrived, the Adasigan nobility was so desperate that it threw itself to the mercy of the mages. While they certainly delivered the city from ruin, they also disenfranchised the highborn quite quickly: their property was seized to provide habitation and schools, their assets were put to work feeding the populace, and their political authority was usurped soon afterwards. However, the nobility could not resist, for the low people of the city treated the wizards with adoration: if the highborn families were to stage an uprising, they would have been swarmed under by the commoners without the wizards even needing to exercise their arcane powers. Nowadays, political authority in Cil Adasiga has been merged with the Guild hierarchy. In a way, the government actually functions similarly to the Marnic Senates, with political representation given to wizards instead of to noble families. There are three tiers of governance: the Arcane Assembly, the Outer Council, and the Inner Council. Membership in the Arcane Assembly is open to any wizard in good standing ranking as at least a Speaker of the Guild; the Outer Council consists of the Guild elders, both Wakers and Masters; and the Inner Council is a highly secretive group of the most powerful Guild Masters, who are rumoured to communicate directly with the Archmasters. Remarkably, all three of these bodies of government allow female membership and participation in the political process. The Arcane Assembly largely controls the day-to-day affairs of life in Cil Adasiga and matters of minor importance within the Guild. Since there is no representation for the worldlings of the city, it largely exists to secure the interests of the arcane class: occasionally, if there is a matter that is particularly pressing to them, the worldlings will ask for a wizardly representative whom they consider an ally to speak on their behalf. Although any full-fledged Guild wizard can take a seat at the Arcane Assembly and be a part of its proceedings, usually it is only Adasigan wizards that attend its proceedings, since the Assembly has little influence on the Guild at large. That said, the Assembly does wield a tremendous amount of power over the city proper, levying taxes, assigning spell-hounds as police, funding the construction of roads and walls, and the like. The Assembly’s proceedings are open to the public, but it is rare for non-wizards to be granted the privilege of speaking there. Because wizards tend to mull things over, the Assembly is slow to make a decision, but once it does, it is virtually impossible to dissuade it. One wizard’s vote has equal weight to that of another, but because of their highly hierarchical mindset, lower-ranking wizards tend to vote in accordance with their mentors or superiors. A representative from each Guild school is elected yearly as an “Advisor” to the Arcane Assembly, an office that is largely symbolic but entails a handsome salary and a reward of status, granted by the Outer Council for contributions to the Guild or to the city of Cil Adasiga. The Outer Council has relatively little influence over Cil Adasiga proper, and instead controls the Guild as a whole. With its membership limited to Guild elders, it is far smaller than the Assembly, and its proceedings, unlike those of the Arcane Assembly, are closed to the public. Wizards lower than elders are allowed to attend most Outer Council meetings, but they cannot participate in making decisions, and if the subject of a particular meeting is considered confidential, it is closed to all but the elders. In some highly unusual circumstances, non-wizard outsiders have been allowed to attend meetings of the Outer Council, but only with the express permission of the elders, and such outsiders have always been unusual adventurers or members of foreign royalty that are considered trustworthy. The Outer Council is led by the Magistrates, a group handpicked by the Inner Council. The Inner Council is the stuff of conspiracy theories. Its membership is unknown, the location of its proceedings is unknown, and its goals are only known insofar as they are applied to the Outer Council and Arcane Assembly. Although Guild wizards will not deny its existence to outsiders, they are notoriously close-mouthed about it, and Adasigan worldlings know nothing of it. Indeed, all members of the Inner Council are magically sworn to secrecy about its proceedings, and so they are physically incapable of speaking about it to anyone who is not permitted to know: their mouths will seal shut if they attempt it. Why such secrecy is necessary is anyone’s guess: perhaps the Archmasters appear before the Inner Council and command it directly; perhaps the Councillors discuss the handling of their most precious artifacts and lore; and perhaps the Council orders the elimination of the Guild’s enemies in Kerlonna and beyond. All such speculation is ultimately fruitless. It is not even certain if the Inner Council meets in Cil Adasiga or else somewhere beyond the city limits. Foreign relations of Cil Adasiga rest greatly on the perception of wizards within the various foreign powers. The best relationship is that with Drecitou: the Royal Court does much to accommodate the Guild, and in turn, Drecitoun ambassadors are given preferential treatment and confidential information more often than are other diplomats. Sraiyag Vacan, with its mild distrust of all wizards and its highly authoritarian government, gives little power to its diplomats in Cil Adasiga, who are sent there mainly to negotiate the affairs of Guildhalls within Vacani territory. Ishkula diplomats in Cil Adasiga are treated with all the respect that is due to them, but they are famous for making life difficult for the Guild by proposing increased cooperation between the wizards and the Ishkula army, to train both for the inevitable drow invasion. The majority of wizards do not believe that the prophesied invasion is coming, and so they are always putting off these Ishkula attempts at drawing them into closer alliance. However, despite these fluctuations in individual relations, on a whole, Cil Adasiga gets along well with the Three Nations, since all of them treat the Guild with proper respect and do not meddle in its affairs within their territories. The Injili, proud of the fact that their ancient civilisation was a magocracy just like Cil Adasiga, have a cordial and healthy presence in the city as well. Relations with Idroslekh have been somewhat more strained since the rise of Ł’eŕ Grimţooģ, whose attitude towards wizards is indifferent at best. The Lord-of-Tribes views the Guild with outright suspicion, since they have ignored his frequent demands that they involve themselves in the war against the Sutiji at Nevaiallan. The bugbear of Cil Adasiga is the Twelve Isles and the reign of Lokirna Maknid. The Guild had expected the uprising and had done nothing to avert it, seeing such things as merely “outsider politics”, but the wizards were deeply shocked when it became clear that Lokirna had not only murdered the royal family, but had ordered the total extermination of the Elthorian bloodline, history’s only known arcane family. By that time, however, there was little that could be done, for House Maknid had gained complete control over the Isles, and it was believed that the Elthorians were lost. If the Guild had tried to intervene in the situation and unseat Lokirna, they would have created a power vacuum that would have been even more destabilising, leading to the nation’s collapse into warring factions and embroiling the Guild in a long and ugly civil war. Therefore, the Guild did nothing, yet it was certainly not pleased that it had to do so. There are no official diplomatic relations between the Twelve Isles and Cil Adasiga, and no Guildhalls operate within the borders of either the Isles or the Duchy of Askalris (there was a Guildhall in the city of Askalris, but its inhabitants packed up and fled to Vordoñat after it became clear that the Maknids were taking over the city). Economy Before the Great Orc-Wars, Cil Adasiga was most famous for the Spice Houses, a group of noble families that had established a monopoly over the spice markets of all of Kerlonna. Relatively little spice was traded in Cil Adasiga itself (most came to the Tlankuram through Amvidra), but the Houses controlled the prices and supply of it from Cil Adasiga, and it made them fabulously rich. Cil Adasiga was a centre of higher commerce, of the actual direction of business and finance. Though the smallest of the Five Pearls of the Tlankuram, it was, per capita, the richest. As the war began, however, the Spice Houses watched helplessly as the trade routes closed down and their investments were destroyed by the chaos. By the time that the wizards came to the city, it was simply subsisting on stockpiled grain and forging weaponry for its soldiers. With their takeover of the region and its establishment as a protectorate, the wizards restructured the city’s economy to focus upon self-sufficiency and resources above all else: the other cities of the Tlankuram were soon destroyed, and the prescient decision of the wizards helped keep the Adasigan low people fed and clothed. This focus on self-sufficiency has continued unbroken for two centuries. One of the most important reasons for this is that trade with other countries causes exchange of ideas alongside the exchange of goods, and the exchange of ideas leads to new opinions, which tends to lead towards new opinions on how the social order ought to be constructed. To keep the masses relatively ignorant and docile, therefore, the wizards discourage trade with the outside world, and instead focus upon the internal trade that will maintain the protectorate: grain, metal, cloth, stone, and lumber. Taxes in Cil Adasiga are very high, but the money is then used for the betterment of the common weal, so that works out nicely. Culture Modern Adasigan society, as one might expect, is dominated by the wizards. The fact of their dominance permeates every aspect of life within the city. In some ways, the wizards set a benevolent example: they patronize the arts, encourage academic life, and have allowed the city, alone among the Five Pearls of the Tlankuram, to survive unscathed since the Marnic Era. In other ways, however, they are not so inspiring: since they are above the law in Cil Adasiga, the only limitations on their behaviour are the Guild codes (which restrict only magical activity and the grossest forms of immoral behaviour) and their own consciences. By no means do all or even the majority of wizards abuse their positions, but enough do that they are not regarded with unsullied trust by their inferiors. Furthermore, the wizards carry themselves with pride that is so absolute that it goes beyond arrogance or hubris: they are utterly assured of their own superiority, harnessing the very forces of reality and bending them to their wills. This can make getting along with them difficult at the best of times, even for their friends among the sworn families and the mage-born. Undoubtedly, one of the most curious features of Adasigan life is the phenomenon of “sworn families.” When the wizards seized power in the city two centuries ago, the nobility responded in two ways: either rebelling by foolishly attempting to restore Adasigan society to as it had been ante bellum, or else submitting to the Guild and accepting a new, magocratic social order. The former were variously driven out of the city by lowborn mobs or pitilessly exterminated by the spell-hounds, while the latter became a strange, disenfranchised yet arrogant class. Since they refused to do the work of the low people, and at this time merchants and traders were out of work, these nobles soon became seen as burdens on the hardworking low people and their wizardly protectors. Therefore, the wizards made a suggestion: the nobles could act as “advisors” to the wizards, living with them and helping them adjust to the new environment of a city. The nobles rushed to this eagerly, but soon found that the wizards so perfectly outstripped them in conceit that the mages unthinkingly gave orders to the nobles to act as their personal servants. If the nobles reacted negatively, the wizards simply turned them out. In time, most “advisors” came to expect this treatment, and submitted to it, reasoning that it was better to serve a wizard then to join the unwashed ranks of the low people or to be driven from the city to the orcish packs roaming the wilds. Soon, specific noble houses began to serve particular Guild elders, and when the war eventually came to an end, they found that they enjoyed their status. Being the personal servants of the wizards meant that they were privy to otherwise secret meetings and were trusted as confidants by their mage masters (or, as the nobles liked to call them, “lieges”). These were the ancestors of today’s sworn families, who occupy a nebulous position somewhere between the ancient Adasigan nobility (to this day the sworn families marry only amongst each other, and in their code of honour, sexual relations with their “lieges” are immoral), slaves, and liveried footmen. They are famous for their haughty attitudes and pretentions, and are not well liked by the low people of Cil Adasiga. They are a peculiarly insular and antiquated lot, largely because their wizardly “lieges” have forbidden them from studying. In fact, the sworn are almost all illiterate, and remember their heritage only through oral tradition. This handily prevents them from being educated enough to ever get any seditious ideas implanted in their minds from outside sources. Worldlings descended from wizards are afforded no special legal status or political influence for their birth, for in Cil Adasiga, arcane ability rather than bloodline grants power. Nevertheless, the mage-born, as they are known, are elevated compared to the lowborn Adasigan humans, owing to their being given opportunities for education and wealth by their parents. Some mage-born families are actually generations removed from their original wizard progenitors, but they retain their unique position. Their children are educated at the College of Worldly Studies, and they are typically conversant in Teogenoi, the wizardly tongue. Since the Guild pursues the policy of providing sexually equal education, both men and women among the mage-born receive the benefits of schooling, making them equal in a way not to be found anywhere else in Kerlonna. For their occupations, most mage-born are merchants, artists, scribes, and jewellers. A select few serve as professors at the College of Worldly Studies. They defer to the wizards in all things, but the mage-born both expect and are given much more respect from the mages than are the low people. Their shops and studios are patronized by the wizards, and they dwell in fine townhouses surrounding the College Mount. Despite the fact that they are, in truth, richer and more influential in the city at large than the sworn families, the mage-born are not so offensively self-important. They get along with the low people as well as they do with the wizards, since it is the mage-born who do the most business with the various artisans of the city and who employ the dockworkers at the harbour. The low people of Cil Adasiga are much like those to be found in other lands. However, they are a curious breed. Since they have dwelt in isolation for the past two centuries, their language, customs, and ethnicity have remained unchanged since the Marnic Era. With the collapse of the Federation long since over, the low people of Cil Adasiga do not identify with any larger nation or union, not even the Guild that rules them. They are loyal to their city-state alone, and if that means being loyal to the wizards who rule it, that is acceptable. They are uninterested in the outside world, since life in Cil Adasiga is stable and self-sufficient: crops, cloth, and ore come from the surrounding countryside, and the city stockpiles its grain, weaves clothing, and works metal in turn. Those traders that come to seek Adasigan markets find it an unsatisfying place, and it is difficult to reach. As such, the Adasigan low people, both urban and rural, are not used to outside traffic, and tend to be very clannish. With no exchange of population with outside territories, families become intertwined and enmeshed, so Adasigan low people often maintain complex, orally transmitted genealogies to avoid the problems of inbreeding. Religion The religious life of Cil Adasiga is centred on the Shrine of Zemnei. With the patronage of the wizards, the witch-goddess has become far more popular, despite her enduring reputation as a dark power. Even common people propitiate her: it is a common hope of worldling parents that their newborn child will develop a wizard’s powers, and so rise to fame and fortune. The other gods are all given their due reverence, but Zemnei is seen as the patron goddess of the city. This was not always so: before the rise of the wizards in Cil Adasiga, its patron deity was Liovniru. The Shrine of Zemnei is located equidistant between the College Mount and the harbour district. Before the Great Orc-Wars, it was a quiet, secretive little delving, but since that time, it has grown into a huge temple, with an imposing statue of the goddess made out of gold and ivory, seated on a throne. Although she is commonly understood to be a malevolent goddess of madness, her worshippers seek to assuage her constant rage with offerings of incense and adulation, to soothe her angry heart. Consequently, her Shrine is a stunningly beautiful and peaceful place, with its priests and laypeople singing and dancing to calm Zemnei. There is another temple, northeast of the College Mount, which worships the pantheon as a whole and is a commonly visited place for prayer and for sacrifice, but it lacks the personal intensity of devotion that Zemnei receives from the Adasigan people, both low and high. The low people are, of course, uniformly faithful to the Eleven Gods of Ronosai, and due to their lack of trade contact with the outside world, are ignorant of Cagas Guapran and of Sahullam. Household shrines are devoted to a favoured deity of the family, who is often not Zemnei, but more often Yärnate, Liovniru, or Seirkäya (for the health of the family). The mage-born, while paying due homage to Zemnei as goddess of their city, usually pay special homage to Rignyas, since they are so often artists and she is the patron goddess of all art forms. Some mage-born are not worshippers of the Eleven Gods, but are ta’Ullami or Guapral. Most often, these apostates are those mage-born who work the most frequently with the wizards upon the College Mount, such as professors at the Colleges, librarians, and the like. The wizards are the most religiously heterogeneous. Only a slight majority worship the gods of Ronosai. The elves almost all retain their traditional religion worshipping the Daviskar and the spirits of the natural world, while the gnomes worship their strange machine-gods, the Architects. Half-elves are a mixed lot, often combining elements of different religions that they have encountered over their lives. Among the humans, Ronosai and Sahullam have a higher representation than Cagas Guapran, since the dragon-faith has something of a low reputation among the circles of the Guild. Ta’Ullami wizards arranged for the establishment of a monastery some five miles to the south of the city, which has existed for forty years. Wizards usually consider it to be in very poor taste to discuss the religion of their fellows, since the choice is so personal and since it does not really affect the study of magic all that much. The proceedings of the Guild are officially secular, invoking no particular religion in its choice of symbolism. Language Upon the College Mount, the language of choice is Teogenoi, an ancient hybrid of elvish vocabulary, gnomish grammar, and human sounds, which is the official language of the Guild. Spell-hounds and the sworn families are given their orders in Teogenoi, and classes in the Colleges are solely taught in the dialect. For non-wizard students at the College of Worldly Studies, the first course of study is to master this exotic creole, after which they can begin to actually study. The privileged position of Old Marnic as the language of commerce and diplomacy is not shared in Cil Adasiga: Teogenoi occupies that position instead. Outsider diplomats must learn the language if they are to be taken at all seriously by their hosts. Most wizards do, in fact, understand Old Marnic as well as Teogenoi, but they choose to use the latter language in part because it is their heritage, and in part, because it allows them to exploit the weakness of outsiders who are not as strong in it as they are. The low people of Cil Adasiga do not speak Teogenoi, unless they are unusually ambitious. A form of Vulgar Marnic is spoken in the city instead, known simply as Adasigan. Many wizards have no grasp of Adasigan at all, and rely on the mage-born, who are conversant in Teogenoi and Adasigan alike, to serve as interpreters, giving them a uniquely advantageous position. Drecitoun and Vacani visitors to the city find Adasigan to be closer to the Old Marnic taproot of their tongues than either of their languages are. History: Military The military of Cil Adasiga consists of two distinct bodies: the city militia, and the spell-hounds. The militia is raised from the low people of the city, with training drills in the spring, summer, and autumn. They are surprisingly well trained and organized, with a clear chain of command and excellent equipment. At first, this may seem somewhat mystifying: what need would the Guild have of a group of worldling soldiers to defend them? No power in Kerlonna has been foolish enough to attempt an attack against the city since the wizards took up residence two centuries ago. The real reason for levying the militia, truly, is that it gives the low people a sense of civic pride and occupies their time: it is a method of social control. The militia patrol the surrounding countryside, handle petty crimes, and manage customs at the harbour and the city walls. They are also responsible for work usually not given to soldiers in other cities, such as cleaning out garbage built up in the streets, gardening, and serving as the night watchmen. They serve the city itself, not the wizards specifically, and, in fact, they have relatively little contact with the masters of their cities, except for the militia officers. Of course, the sworn families of the wizards do not have to furnish soldiers for the militia, and they take pride in this, associating militia duty with the labours of the “riffraff.” The spell-hounds, on the other hand, are the elite of the city’s defences, and low people, mage-born and sworn families alike regard them with dread. Put through brutal training regimens, ruthlessly efficient and persistent, and conditioned to read the emotions of people in their faces, the members of the Order of the Wolfhound occupy a position secondary only to the wizards themselves. Although the Order was originally developed to hunt down and eliminate rogue wizards, during the Grey Rebellion they became something more akin to an elite force of professional soldiers, and in Cil Adasiga, they also serve as the city’s secret police. They are responsible for crowd control, public executions, interrogation, and protection of the wizards. It has been noted by multiple authorities that in Cil Adasiga, public executions are not the public spectacle of entertainment and frenzy that they are elsewhere: the spell-hounds, with their stony faces and alien gaze, frighten the crowds into a respectful silence, as the condemned is knelt and beheaded with a massive blow from a broadsword. Cooperation between the two elements of the Adasigan military is unusual. The militia is responsible for the common defence and the protection of the worldlings of the city, whereas the spell-hounds are agents for the Guild specifically. It is undeniable that the Order occupies a higher social level than do the militiamen, yet at the same time, they are much more isolated from and disdainful of the common people: their training causes them to lose most of their connection with normal folk. Because of the rigor of their training and the ferocity with which they discipline themselves, the spell-hounds are a group known for their honesty, lack of corruption, and justice. At the same time, however, they have no skill for winning the affections of the common people, and they are widely seen as almost inhuman in their tenacity and in their determination to do the will of their masters. The militiamen, on the other hand, are ordinary people, with wives and children, and many of them take the work as a part-time occupation: they are also blacksmiths, fishmongers, or carpenters. As the saying goes, “You can trust a spell-hound, but you can love a militiaman.”